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Ch-ch-ch-changes...

We were just talking about change. Change in general, change in Obamology, and change in Sitemeter. And as I'm slowing getting caught up in reading the comments that collected when I was enjoying a change in scenery -- traveling to South Carolina for a wedding -- I ran across Joe's comment on that "America wants change" post. He was quoting those famous lyrics:

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes....
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

So I wanted to watch the video:

This got me thinking about songs with stuttering. I'd like to see a big list. Here's one. But I want more. And I'd like to know who started it. I always think of "My Generation," but there must be a lot of other earlier songs that filled out the beats with the nice idea of just stuttering. There's "Barbara Ann," originally done by The Regents (in 1961) and famously covered by The Beach Boys, The Who, and John McCain.

But "Barbara Ann" is kind of a late Doo Wop song. Doo Wop was full of nonsense syllables, and some of those old Doo Wo songs must use the syllables from the non-nonsense words and thus be the precursors of the very memorable stuttering songs like "My Generation," "Changes," "Benny and the Jets," etc., etc.

And even before Doo Wop, there must have been some old novelty songs with stuttering. Ah! I thought of it!

There now, I've got us back to 1917. Can you find anything earlier?

Extras:

1. Here's a list of famous people who stutter (or stuttered)... including Joe Biden, whose strange smiling is connected to his efforts to overcome stuttering:

Biden?s most notorious feature is his mouth. But in his youth, he had a stutter. As a freshman in high school he was exempted from public speaking because of his disability, and was ridiculed by teachers and peers. His nickname was Dash, because of his inability to finish a sentence.

He developed an odd smile as a way to relax his facial muscles (it still shows up while he?s speaking today) and he?s spent his adulthood making up for any comments that may have gone unmade during his youth.

2. Here's a great episode of "This American Life":

Kevin Murphy is a college student in Idaho who stutters. Using the power of radio editing, he and the production staff of This American Life removed his pauses, stutters and repeats so that he could record a message in which he doesn't stutter at all. This allowed him to tape a message about something that's been bothering him, to send to one man ... a pizza guy, in Idaho.

3. Mel Blanc as Porky Pig sang "K-k-k Katy." It's so apt for the famous cartoon stutterer to sing the original (?) stuttering song. I could find video of that but I did find this:

Full post as published by Althouse on September 17, 2008 (boomark / email).